Guy Woolfenden has conducted concerts with many of the major British symphony and chamber orchestras, and his imaginative programmes are highly regarded. He enjoys a close association with many composers and has conducted an impressive number of first performances. His theatrical flair finds its natural outlet in opera, and his credits include three productions with Scottish Opera and, in London, the first British productions of Nielsen's Saul and David, Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans and Liszt's Don Sanche. In collaboration with choreographer André Prokovsky, he has arranged the music for four full-length ballets, which he has subsequently conducted in productions with Australian Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Hong Kong Ballet Comapny, Scottish Ballet and Asami Maki Ballet, Tokyo. He conducted the acclaimed Russian premiere of Anna Karenina with The Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg in 1993. With around 150 scores for the Royal Shakespeare Company and an impressive list of credits with major European theatre companies, including the Comédie-Française, Paris, the Burgtheater, Vienna, the Teatro Stabile, Genoa and the Norwegian National Theatre, Oslo, Guy Woolfenden's theatre music is highly regarded throughout the world. He has collaborated with some of the world's finest directors, designers and choreographers in many award-winning productions. Guy Woolfenden was awarded an OBE for services to music by HM The Queen in the New Years Honours 2007.
Dominic Muldowney studied at Southampton University with Jonathan Harvey and at York University with Bernard Rands and David Blake. When Harrison Birtwistle was appointed as the Royal National Theatre's first musicdirector in 1975, he invited Dominic, who had studied privately with Birtwistle, to become his assistant. Subsequently succeeding him as Music Director from 1981-1997, Dominic has composed many scores for the company, and his many compositions for the concert hall are highly regarded around the world.
The young prize-winning composer, Eseld Pierce, began her studies on piano and trumpet in Cornwall. She won an entrance scholarship to the Birmingham Conservatoire to study composition, and has written works for chamber, symphony and wind orchestras. She is interested in a wide variety of musical styles, including folk music from around the world, and is an experienced jazz vocalist and trumpeter. In 1997 Eseld Pierce was the winner of the first Cornwall Young Composer of the Year Competition.